Best Buy confirms free iPhone 3GS promotion; in-store only By: Zach Epstein | Dec 10th, 2010 at 02:46PM View Comments Filed Under: Mobile, Retail Following BGR’s exclusive reports, Best Buy has confirmed that it is offering Apple’s iPhone 3GS for free during a one-day only sale. Best Buy also clarified that the offer is only available at Best Buy store locations, and is limited to one per customer:In response to customer demand and interest, Best Buy confirms that it is offering the iPhone 3GS for free with 2-year new or upgrade activation as a special one-day event on Friday, Dec. 10, 2010.
The big G just revamped its mobile device interface of Google Docs to make it closer to the full-fledged experience you get when editing from a proper computer — you know, something that probably has a keyboard, a big display, and a price that didn’t come with any two year agreements. Now that top shelf interface is also available on one of those devices that fits somewhere in-between those two segments: the iPad. Users of Apple’s tablet can opt into the desktop version for big-time editing of spreadsheets and documents and, while Google still recommends using the mobile editor, if you want full power it’s yours.
The Antikythera Mechanism is what you call truly old school technology. Argued to be the world’s oldest known computer, this ancient Greek invention was used some time circa 100BC to calculate and “predict celestial events and eclipses with unprecedented accuracy.” Skipping past the two millennia in which it lay lost on a sea floor somewhere, the Mechanism has now been recreated by an Apple software engineer by the name of Andrew Carol, who has lovingly pieced 1,500 Lego Technic blocks together, creating 110 gears and four gearboxes in total. Each box is responsible for performing one piece of arithmetic, and when the resulting machine is fed with appropriate calendar data, it spits out a (hopefully accurate) prediction for the next time a solar eclipse should occur. All well and good, but we’re really just amazed by the beauty of those gears working. Check them out after the break.
Only a few days after Radio Shack unveiled the first iPhone sale in recorded history, Best Buy’s done one better — it’s offering up the 8GB iPhone 3GS “to qualified customers” without charging a cent for the handset. Yes, that’s a free iPhone, not counting the AT&T ball and chain, for the likely-far-less-than-one-day supplies will last, and so we imagine a fair number of you will start queuing up right now to get in on the action. Not a bad way to move surplus inventory and head off perennially rumored CDMA juggernauts at the pass — promise them the free iPhone, then lock them into those two-year contracts. It’s hard to resist!
Physical keyboards are old news, right? They will be come January 28, which is when Acer intends to make its dual-screen Iconia laptop available for public consumption. That’s the date we’ve received from the company’s official Spanish mouthpiece, accompanied by a lofty €1,499 ($1,987). Literal currency translations are as usual unadvisable, but that’s a hefty fee, however you want to think about it. Then again, the Iconia does come with two 14-inch multitouch LCDs, which last we checked weren’t the cheapest parts in the land, and also furnishes you with some decent grunt under the hood courtesy of a Core i5 CPU, up to 4GB of RAM, up to 750GB of storage, an optional 3G module, and — lest we forget — a USB 3.0 port. We’re sure it’ll end up as somebody’s perfect bowl of porridge.
Another mystery solved: The black-laced blonde bombshell protagonist of the most stupid and surreal TSA action to date posed naked for Playboy in 1997. No kidding. The surgeon was really a Playboy bunny, and here’s the proof.
52-year-old Dr. Tammy Banovac was then a dental surgeon working in Oklahoma. At the time she still used her maiden name, Tammy Lynn Brewer, which is confirmed by her Classmates page.
When I was a kid I used to think that all those Playboy bunnies who claimed to be doctors, scientists or mechanics were just a source of kinky fantasies. Happily, my kinky fantasies just turned out to be real. [The Lost Ogle]
Send an email to Jesus Diaz, the author of this post, at jesus@gizmodo.com.
This blonde bombshell wearing just black lace, a pearl necklace and a white dog is Tammy Banovac, a retired surgeon in a wheelchair. She got down to her lingerie while going through airport security and still got a pat down. Twice.
Dr. Banovac always refuses to go through the metal detector. She has to use a metal wheelchair and that means that she always gets a pat down no matter what. Lately, she says she feels violated because the pat downs have become increasingly invasive during the last few months. “If it happened anywhere else, it would have been sexual assault,” she declared to a local newspaper.
She was so angry with the situation that she decided to change things. On November 30, the 52-year-old arrived to the Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City en route to Phoenix, wearing just a trench coat. When it was time to pass through the check point, she took off her coat, stripping down to her black lace lingerie. She hoped that, by showing that she had nothing to hide, she would not be hand-searched.
Sadly for her, things got worse: The perspicacious TSA agents wanted her to go through the metal detector, anyway. When she understandably refused, they decided to give her a pat down.
At this point, the quick-witted TSA agents said they found traces of nitrate on her body. Banovac claimed that it was probably her medication or a result of a hunting day. However, since it’s obvious that the retired surgeon could be a secret Al-Qaeda terrorist carrying a bomb somewhere in her lace bra or panties, the astute TSA officials subjected her to a one-hour hand-search and interrogation. Yes, one hour.
As a result, she missed her flight to Phoenix and had to return home.
But hold on, because it gets even more surreal: She returned the next day and the same thing happened. She got down to her lingerie and got a hand-search anyway. This time, however, she could make her flight on time.
If this is not an example of everything that is fucked up with the TSA, I don’t know what is. [USA Today and CBS]
Harvard University researcher Ronald A. DePinho has discovered a way to reverse age degeneration for the first time. His experiments on mice have demonstrated that you can return individuals to a younger state, with new growth on brain and improved fertility.
While scientists knew about the role of telomerase—an enzyme that adds DNA sequence repeats at the end of chromosomes—in body decadence and experiments were made with extremely simple organisms, this is the first time that this breakthrough has been achieved in complex mammals. While it’s not human testing, this discovery could be an amazing weapon to fight Alzheimer and other degenerative diseases.
According to DePinho: We wanted to know: If you could flip the telomerase switch on and restore telomeres in animals with entrenched age-related disease, what would happen? Would it slow down aging, stabilize it, or even reverse it? It was akin to a Ponce de León [the Spanish explorer looking for the Fountain of Youth] effect. When we flipped the telomerase switch on and looked a month later, the brains had largely returned to normal. One of the most amazing changes was in the animals’ testes, which were essentially barren as aging caused the death and elimination of sperm cells. When we restored telomerase, the testes produced new sperm cells, and the animals’ fecundity was improved – their mates gave birth to larger litters.
Not only the treated mice had their degenerative problems reversed, but they also lived longer than the individuals in the control group. The experiments were made in sick mice, however, not normal mice. Compared to normal mice, the treated beasts lived just the same. I don’t know about you, but I’d be lining for the human trials. [Harvard]
Wendy Scott, a teacher of at North Brookfield Elementary School in Massachusetts, tried to ban pencils and pens in her classroom. It’s completely ridiculous because you sorta need them to do schoolwork and because it’s just a freaking pencil and pen.
The crazy teacher’s memo to her students’ parent stated:
Students would no longer be allowed to bring writing implements to school. It said pencils would be provided for students in class and any students caught with pencils or pens after Nov. 15 would face disciplinary action for having materials “to build weapons.”
I remember being pretty proud of my pencils, pens and pencil cases as a kid. I don’t remember ever “building weapons” with them (but with kids these days, who knows!). All I know is that there are much more dangerous items in a classroom than a measly pencil or pen. Like, uh, staplers. And don’t even get me started on paper cutters.
The Massachusetts school district is rightfully distancing itself away from this rogue teacher, saying she never got permission to enforce this ridiculous demand. I’m just wondering what the hell was going on in her head, what’s the difference between pencils and pens students bring from home and the one she’d have to supply? Some people are just too damn silly. [News Blaze via Geekosystem]
Best Buy confirms free iPhone 3GS promotion; in-store only By: Zach Epstein | Dec 10th, 2010 at 02:46PM View Comments Filed Under: Mobile, Retail Following BGR’s exclusive reports, Best Buy has confirmed that it is offering Apple’s iPhone 3GS for free during a one-day only sale. Best Buy also clarified that the offer is only available at Best Buy store locations, and is limited to one per customer:In response to customer demand and interest, Best Buy confirms that it is offering the iPhone 3GS for free with 2-year new or upgrade activation as a special one-day event on Friday, Dec. 10, 2010.
52-year-old Dr. 
It's my life, you're just along for the ride! 